Mr. Robot: season 2 episode 5 review – eps2.3_logic_b0mb.hc

This week’s installment of Mr. Robot finally breaks through the somewhat dull pace of the previous episodes of the season and feels like a return to form. Everyone is back in the game and things are rapidly growing complicated. Below is our detailed and spoiler-heavy review.

With Elliot finally focused on something besides blocking out Mr. Robot, the title character is resigned to a tiresome nagging in the background as he tries to warn Elliot against looking into Ray’s super-secret website. As expected, Elliot can’t resist, and learns that the jovial and seemingly trustworthy Ray is actually dealing in various black market affairs. Naturally, this comes back to haunt Elliot by the end of the episode, when Ray orders his goons to give him a good old fashioned beat down.

Elsewhere, Darlene attempts to talk Angela into helping her hack the FBI in order to protect Elliot, but is met with resistance. Later, after a disheartening meet up with her slimeball ex-boyfriend that reveals he’s been talking to the FBI, Angela pays a visit to Elliot. This is the first scene of the pair this season and they share a heartwarming moment in which Elliot insists he doesn’t want her involved in order to protect her. He also tells her he hasn’t been in touch because he wanted to get better first. Angela offers to be a friend whenever he needs one, and is clearly moved by the reunion because she later teams up with Darlene and agrees to help. This puts her right in the midst of fSociety, which given her current position at Evil Corp is rather compelling thought.

Angela refuses to aid Darlene in order to protect Elliot.

Meanwhile, Joanna proves to be one of the more unsettling characters of the series when she heartlessly orders the death of Kareem the parking attendant in order to protect Elliot. An interesting notion, since we still don’t know how exactly her husband was involved with the hack. After the deed is complete, she insists on knowing every detail about the murder and reveals a rather bizarre perspective about the morality of it all. She also continues to receive mysterious packages and gets a perplexing phone call from a seemingly nearby location. Presumably, these are attempts at contact being made by Tyrell, but something about that seems all too likely.

On the FBI front, Dom makes some serious headway in the case when her and her colleagues visit Beijing seeking evidence about the 5/9 hack. This brings her face to face with Whiterose, who it turns out acts as the Chinese Minister for State Security. She unwittingly draws Whiterose’s attention when she mentions the Dark Army, and the two share some compelling yet unsettling moments. Whiterose agrees to aid in their investigation, but intentions and motivations remain equivocal at this time. The episode concludes with Dom and her fellow FBI agents being ambushed by armed men wearing masks. After her colleagues are killed in front of her, Dom proves to be proficient at her job and takes out some of the gunmen, remaining in hiding at the close of the episode. It’s clear that the Dark Army will go to any length to protect themselves, and this episode seems to confirm Whiterose as their leader.

Each of the characters shine in this episode, and the pace was on point for maybe the first time this season. Additionally, this was a return of the more stylized use of lighting and cinematography, making what would normally be rather mundane scenes entirely captivating. Hopefully this caliber of episode continues throughout the season, as it still has potential to surpass the first.

Lead Writer

Jennifer is currently a stay a full time homemaker residing in the Adirondack region of upstate New York with a background in business management. At present, she provides care for disabled family members.